Bruck, Connie. The Predators' Ball: The Inside Story of Drexel Burnham and
the Rise of the Junk Bond Raiders. New York: Penguin Books, 1989. 399 pages.
This book, originally published in 1988 by Simon and Schuster, was
the first to blow the whistle on Michael Milken. Connie Bruck, a staff
writer for the New York Times, worked on it for two and a half years,
and interviewed almost 300 people. Fred Joseph, CEO at Drexel, agreed to
cooperate with Bruck in February, 1986 -- a time when the business press
universally admired Drexel for their ability to turn junk into gold.
Drexel felt unassailable, and for months Bruck kept scribbling while
they kept bragging. Then in November, 1986, Ivan Boesky pleaded guilty
to insider trading and Drexel circled their wagons. Milken offered Bruck
$250,000 not to publish the book, while Milken's attorney Arthur Liman
(remember Iran-contra?) obtained a copy of the manuscript despite Simon
and Schuster's security precautions, and planned an all-out counterattack
with the help of Linda Robinson and her PR firm.
Bruck says that when she started this book, her sympathies were more
with Milken than with the corporate establishment that Milken was attacking.
It was her willingness to be driven by the evidence that caused Jason
McManus, Time Inc.'s editor in chief, to regard this book as "the finest
piece of business investigative journalism since the turn-of-the-century
muckrakers, Lincoln Steffens and Upton Sinclair."
ISBN 0-14-012090-4
Extract the names from this source
Back to search page